Widgets are an increasingly popular technology. Widgets or gadgets are mini applications that afford a limited set of information and/or functionality. A typical widget comprises metadata (e.g., XML), code (e.g., JavaScript), and a user interface (e.g., HTML). The metadata provides widget configuration information such as an identifier, name, version, description, and author, among other things. The code specifies functionality associated with a widget, and the user interface provides a mechanism to present data to and receive data from a user.
Widgets can be implemented in computerized games in various ways known in the art as disclosed, for example, in the following patent applications:
US Patent Application No. 2011/159966 discloses a method comprising: validating a request to establish a data feed between a wagering game machine in a wagering game establishment and a server of an online social community against data import/export rules of a wagering game establishment; establishing the data feed through a data liaison associated with the online social community and a data import/export controller of the wagering game establishment in accordance with the data import/export rules; and expurgating units of the data feed in accordance with the import/export rules while maintaining the data feed and maintaining obscurity of the wagering game machine from the online social community server. A request that originates from an online social community or a derivative of the online social community can be a widget created for and/or distributed from an online social community.
US Patent Application No. 2011/136569 discloses a method and apparatus for generating wagering games. The method comprises: analyzing code of a wagering game to determine one or more aesthetic assets, one or more wagering game presentation engines, and game logic of the wagering game; generating an executable re-usable code for each of the one or more aesthetic assets to indicate the one or more aesthetic assets in an environment different than an electronic wagering game machine environment; generating an executable re-usable code for each of the one or more wagering game presentation engines to implement the one or more wagering game presentation engines in the environment different than the electronic wagering game machine environment; and generating an executable re-usable code that implements the game logic in the environment different than the electronic wagering game machine environment.
US Patent Application No. 2009/249282 discloses mechanisms for supporting cross platform widgets. A generic widget can be converted into a specialized widget of a corresponding platform. Dually, a specialized widget can be generalized to a generic widget for subsequent deployment on the same or different host. Furthermore, support is provided for compositional widgets across platforms.